Hello Buddy,
I will reply to each of your points below:
Quote:
Originally Posted by sterlingsilver Hi Pareekvirendra, thanks for the heads-up on the parts pricing! Would like to know a little more details from you, would greatly help in my decision:
1. Did you have the car checked out with Toyota ASS / independent mechanic before your purchase?
2. Out of all the items you mentioned, only the brake pads and front suspension parts come under "wear and tear".All other items are prone to failure after X hours/ years etc. Did anyone highlight the condition of these items prior to your purchase, or did they just "'give away" during your ownership and usage?
3. Would love to know the stories behind the AC repair and headlights replacement
4. Your post reminds me of what GTO said at the beginning of this thread. Despite low kms on the odo, since its a 7 year car, are major repairs a given fact i need to be prepared for?
5. Your car looks well taken care of. All i see a well maintained car! Good going. Are you still owning it? |
1. Yes, I did get the car checked at a nearby Toyota ASS as well as with a friendly neighborhood garage. They all told me it was an excellent purchase. In fact, when I took the car to the Toyota showroom to get it checked, there was another guy there who asked me to let me know if I didn't go through with the purchase, as he really liked the car (this was one of the reasons I decided to go ahead with buying the car
). The Toyota showroom guy and the friendly garage guy both told me that the car was in great condition and will not give me any issues for the foreseeable future. The car had 100000 kilometres on the odometer at that time and had a perfect service history.
2. Well, I agree with you here, most of the parts I mentioned are prone to wear and tear. Like I said, none of these parts were highlighted and were deemed to be in good working order, till the day they gave out. For example both the HID bulbs gave out within a month of each other and they were really expensive at the showroom. I ordered them from Amazon Germany instead and got two bulbs at around Rs. 9500.00. The head light washer is quite delicate and can be damaged by even a slight nudge to the front bumper. I moved to a different city and became good friends to the authorised service center guy here. He told me that no matter how good the condition of the car, these cars are really expensive to maintain once they cross 7 years or so.
3. I would love to know the story behind the AC too. Usually it works great and chills the cabin even in the extreme heat of Rajasthan Summers without any problem, but on some days it just stops working without any reason or warning it seems. The service center has had the car for about three days three occasions each time. Each time they return the car and tell me a different part is malfunctioning (First time it was the condenser coil, second time I don't remember what they said, and the third time they advised me to replace the whole unit with a price upwards of Rs. 80000.00 I think). To be fair, they did give a lot of time to the AC and the last time they took the whole thing apart and put it together again, but I don't think they can pin point the problem and hence have advised to replace the whole thing, which is obviously out of the question for me. Then the AC worked fine for another year and stopped working about two days ago. I wonder when it will start working again or what to do as a permanent fix.
As to the headlight, I was unfortunate enough to hit a dog. The dog wasn't hurt, and ran away, but the car was hurt badly. Lost both headlight washers, the inter-cooler, bumper, fender lining and some other parts. When I took the car to the showroom for repairs, they gave me a quotation which quoted the headlight at Rs. 75,000.00. To put it in perspective, my Bike cost me Rs. 75000.00 when I purchased it a few years back, and the Activa for my wife cost me 66,000.00 when i purchased it about two years back. That's how expensive the parts are. Thankfully the headlight wasn't damaged and I didn't need to replace it.
4. I am not sure about major repairs, but major bills are something that you will need to prepare for if you own this car. When (not if) something fails, it will be expensive to replace. For some reason, Toyota has really overpriced the parts of this car. The brake pads on an Etios cost Rs. 2800, whereas for this car they cost Rs. 8500.00. I believe the pads for an Innova cost around Rs. 3000.00 or so (not sure). All the parts for this car have a very heavy markup on them for some reason and this will really drive up your cost of ownership. The cost of ownership for this car is comparable to a Fortuner or a Camry when it comes to the parts. However, you can overcome this by buying parts from outside. For example the break pads from Bosch cost around Rs. 1800, and are the same ones as on the car.
5. The car was and still is in excellent mechanical condition and yes, I still own it. Despite all the niggles I have mentioned here, it is an amazing car to own and drive. Like I said earlier, the comfort level of this car is beyond what I have seen in many other cars. Once I start the car, its as if I am in a different environment.
In case there is anything else I can clarify, please do let me know. Cheers.